A Tale of Two Cities ***** (1935, Ronald Colman, Elizabeth Allan, Edna May Oliver, Basil Rathbone) – Classic Movie Review 6936

Director Jack Conway’s 1935 historical romantic drama A Tale of Two Cities stars an ideally cast Ronald Colman, who is noble and stirring as alcoholic English lawyer Sydney Carton, who sacrifices himself to save his former French aristocrat double Charles Darnay from the guillotine, in MGM’s exhilarating and spectacular version of Charles Dickens’s French Revolutionary novel. The lookalikes Carton and Darnay fall in love with the same woman, Darnay’s fiancée, Lucie Manette,

A Tale of Two Cities has a great cast, a wildly extravagant production (there were 17,000 extras in the Paris street scenes) and outstanding contributions in the black and white cinematography by Oliver T Marsh, the art direction by Cedric Gibbons and the music score by Herbert Stothart).

Blanche Yurka (in her debut) steals all her scenes as Madame De Farge. It is a good role to play but she really relishes it. However, Elizabeth Allan as Lucie Manette, Basil Rathbone as Marquis St Evrémonde, Edna May Oliver as Miss Pross, Reginald Owen as C J Stryver, Henry B Walthall as Dr Manette, Donald Woods as Charles Darnay, Walter Catlett as Barsad and H B Warner as Gabelle are all notable presences too.

A triumph of acting, screen-writing (W P Lipscomb and S N Behrman) and set design from the golden era of Hollywood, producer David O Selznick’s A Tale of Two Cities was nominated for two Oscars as Best Picture and for Best Film Editing (Conrad A Nervig), though surprisingly went home empty handed.

Also among the enormous cast are Claude Gillingwater, Fritz Leiber Sr, Mitchell Lewis, Billy Bevan, Isabel Jewell, Lucille LaVerne, Eily Maylon, E E Clive, Ralf Harolde, Nigel de Brulier, Walter Kingsford, Robert Warwick, Forrester Harvey and Tempe Piggott.

A Tale of Two Cities runs 128 minutes.

It is followed by a fine British version, A Tale of Two Cities (1958), with Dirk Bogarde.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 6936

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